Shopping Returns! Do Americans Return too Many Things? Where Does the Stuff Go? Are Stores too Generous With Return Policies? Should We Feel Bad About the Carbon Footprint?

The Best Paragraph I've Read: Steady growth in Internet shopping has been accompanied by steady growth in returns of all kinds. A forest’s worth of artificial Christmas trees goes back every January. Bags of green plastic Easter grass go back every spring. Returns of large-screen TVs surge immediately following the Super Bowl. People who buy portable generators during weather emergencies use them until the emergencies have ended, and then those go back, too. A friend of mine returned so many digital books to Audible that the company now makes her call or e-mail if she wants to return another. People who’ve been invited to fancy parties sometimes buy expensive outfits or accessories, then return them the next day, caviar stains and all—a practice known as “wardrobing.” Brick-and-mortar shoppers also return purchases. “Petco takes back dead fish,”Demer said. “Home Depot and Lowe’s let you return dead plants, for a year. You just have to be shameless enough to stand in line with the thing you killed.” It almost goes without saying that Americans are the world’s leading refund seekers; consumers in Japan seldom return anything. This paragraph comes from the New Yorker. The article is titled: "What Happens to All the Stuff We Return?" The article is written by David Owen. You can read the full article here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/21/the-hidden-cost-of-free-returns Zac and Don discuss the world of retail and online shopping returns. They reflect on some of the returns they have made. They marvel at how how cheap certain goods remain even when the cost of returns are built in.